Recently, the first-instance legal documents for unfair competition dispute cases between Beijing iQiyi Technology Co., Ltd. and Anhui Blade Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Blade Company) were made public. Blade Company provided iQiyi member account rental services on its operating platform and obtained high benefits from it, which constituted unfair competition. It was sentenced to iQiyi's economic losses of 2 million yuan and reasonable expenses of 30,000 yuan, totaling 2.03 million yuan.
It is worth noting that in recent years, illegal acts of third-party companies leasing video platform membership accounts have been high. The defendant in this case, Blade Company, was sued by Youku for similar reasons at the beginning of this year, and the judgment was made to compensate 1.23 million yuan. It is understood that video platforms such as iQiyi, Youku, Tencent , Bilibili have made clear provisions on member accounts in the user agreement, that is, the member accounts shall not be transferred, rented, rented, sold or shared with others without the platform's permission.
So is it illegal to transfer a personal member account to a friend, and is there a risk of being sued?
platform was sentenced to pay 2 million yuan in compensation for renting an iQiyi member account
judgment document shows that as a plaintiff, iQiyi Company claimed that the member payment system is the inherent business model of its website and the operating method of maintaining related video business, and is also the main source of income for iQiyi Company. The service agreement and member service agreement of iQiyi website clearly stipulate the basic principles of prohibiting sublease.
Image source: Daily Economic News
But Blade Company provides iQIYI member account rental services in the film and television zone of the "Blade Platform" on the Apple side, Android side, and PC side "Registration Play" platform (referred to as the platform under sued) operated by it, and obtains high benefits from it.
According to the notarization in question, Blade Company can directly obtain economic benefits from account rental transactions by charging the lessor 15%-20% handling fee (the minimum fee is 0.35 yuan) and the 3% withdrawal fee in each order; at the same time, Blade Company also charges service fees from the lessor through merchants, distributors, compensation, insurance, limited-time shelves, small speakers, enjoy cards and other service items, and expands the transaction scale and attracts user traffic through the above services.
The defendant Blade Company said that iQiyi Company operates a video website, and Blade Company provides game account rental services, and the two parties have no competitive relationship. The rights of video accounts shall be enjoyed by the user, and the user's account shall belong to personal property. All iQiyi member accounts on the platform being sued were uploaded by users, which is a legitimate disciplinary action by users on their personal property.
The court held that the accused behavior of Blade Company caused users who intend to use membership rights to use iQiyi website membership services under the name of others; on the other hand, it also prompted the lessor to use a different identity to register and hoard multiple member accounts in order to expand the income from the rental account. It is precisely because of the broad member user and non-member user base of iQiyi that the Blade Company uses the mentality of some users' intention to obtain improper benefits by renting accounts, so that the platform under the lawsuit has obtained a large number of users who specialize in member account rentals and make high profits based on this. Even if the final account rental is implemented by users, Blade Company has built a platform for the sued and set up a special film and television rental area, providing conditions for the account rental behavior generally prohibited by the video industry, which obviously violates the principle of honesty and trustworthiness of the video industry and basic business ethics.
The court's first-instance judgment determined that the act of Blade Company's rental of iQiyi members violated the principle of honesty and trustworthiness and business ethics, with obvious subjective faults, and profits made through this behavior infringed on iQiyi's legitimate rights and interests, and constituted unfair competition. Therefore, it was sentenced to compensate iQiyi Company for economic losses of 2 million yuan and reasonable expenses of 30,000 yuan.
After the first instance judgment, Blade Company appealed, and the Beijing Intellectual Property Court rejected the lawsuit in the second instance and upheld the original judgment.
In the second instance judgment, the court pointed out that it can be confirmed that video website user accounts are one person and one number, and member accounts are prohibited from subletting and borrowing. The basic business rules of the video industry at this stage. Video websites are based on their member management system and further assist them in making business decisions such as resource procurement and advertising. Although iQiyi Company also provides time-to-date transfer services, it occurs among iQiyi members. The related transfer behavior is also under the control of iQiyi Company and belongs to the scope of iQiyi Company's allocation of its own business resources. The nature of the accused behavior of Blade Company is completely different from this.
The platform operated by Blade Company takes "account rental" as its main business, and operates account rental services for multiple video platforms including iQiyi Video. Through merchants, distributors, compensation, insurance, limited-time shelves, small speakers, enjoyment cards and other service items, the lessor realizes the transaction opportunities of account rental, so as to obtain high returns and have subjective fault.
iQiyi Company invested high fees to obtain high-quality video resources and bear other costs such as servers and bandwidth required for video storage, thereby establishing a competitive advantage and obtaining relevant legitimate rights and interests through membership agreements and other channels. It belongs to the scope that should be protected by Anti-Unfair Competition Law. On the one hand, the accused behavior of Blade Company has caused ordinary users to not have to pay membership fees to iQiyi Company or obtain free videos at the cost of watching advertisements, but choose to obtain member video resources provided by iQiyi Company by renting an account, which has substantially affected iQiyi's transaction opportunities, member income and user traffic. On the other hand, it will also affect the reliability of the data collected and accumulated by iQiyi Company based on member use behavior, break the existing membership order and operation model established by iQiyi Company. The behavior of Blade Company violates the principles of honesty and trustworthiness and basic business ethics of the video industry.
From the long-term impact, Blade Company's accused behavior has broken the benign competition mechanism, causing iQiyi's expected business goals to fail and operating income to be reduced. In the long run, it will lead to a decrease in the competitive vitality of market entities, hinder the normal and orderly development of the online video industry, and ultimately cause a loss of consumer welfare.
Is it illegal to lend a member account to a friend?
So is it illegal to transfer a personal member account to a friend, and is there a risk of being sued?
The editor checks the relevant user agreements in iQiyi App, Youku Video App, Tencent Video App, and Bilibili App. All four apps state in their membership agreements: "Accounts are only for use by themselves and may not be loaned or shared with others." and other terms.
Image source: iQiyi User Agreement
Image source: Youku User Agreement
Image source: Tencent Video User Agreement
Image source: Bilibili User Agreement
It is reported that as early as 2015, the situation of renting video member accounts has begun to be more common. Due to the popularity of " Tomb Raiders' Chronicles ", a large number of iQiyi VIP member accounts were illegally shared on the Internet. iQiyi therefore issued the "Announcement on Combating Malicious Sharing of iQiyi VIP Member Accounts", and successively issued regulations that VIP members allow the same account to be used on 5 devices, and can only be used on up to 3 devices a day, and can only be viewed on 2 devices at the same time.
Youku and Tencent Video also set relevant restrictions on the number of VIP accounts, etc. Youku stipulates that VIP membership accounts are limited to personal use only and are not allowed to be transferred or rented. The same Youku member account only allows you to use it on up to 5 devices, and the same account can be used on up to 2 devices at the same time. If you log in to the same Youku member account on the third device and play it, the membership rights on the device will not be used for the time being.
Tencent Video stipulates that the same account can be used on up to five devices, and the same account can be used on up to two devices within the same time, and the same account can be logged in in up to five different cities within 24 hours. If used beyond the above range, Tencent will suspend or terminate the service as appropriate.
According to Poster News, "First of all, it is necessary to base the service agreement signed by the user with the video platform when registering a member, but the rights and obligations of the service agreement must be relatively fair and reasonable. The platform cannot use the standard terms to limit the legal rights of consumers." Lawyer Yin Qingqian from Beijing Dacheng (Jinan) Law Firm told reporters that the user registered an account on the video platform and recharged and paid for the membership. Therefore, the member account has certain property attributes. The video platform should provide corresponding video on-demand services. If the user does not lend it to others for the purpose of making profits, it should not be considered infringement of the platform's rights.
According to First Financial , High-level Research Center of Intellectual Property Research Center of China University of Political Science and Law Special Researcher Zhao Zhanling told reporters that many network operators will agree in the service agreement with users that users only have the right to use the network account but have no ownership rights, and prohibit the reselling and renting of the account. If the user rents out his own account, it constitutes a breach of contract, and the Internet operator will generally impose penalties on the nature of breach of contract liability such as banning the account.
"If other platforms specialize in providing online account rental services and obtaining high benefits from it, this behavior will generally be considered to be a violation of the principle of honesty and trustworthiness and business ethics, and constitute unfair competition." Zhao Zhanling said.
Source: Daily Economic News
Editor: Xing Zhibin
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